Sony is still making the MDR-V6 after 30 years, which means people are still buying them. Must be a reason. Flat response. Closed back for no leaking sound. Comfortable. Replace the factory vinyl earpads with some Beyer velour pads, and you will be very happy with the sound, comfort, and the left o...

1. Get a comfy Murphy bed/sofa bed for the living room, and sleep in it when your parents come over. Your parents get your bed. That way our kids do not get impacted. 2. I think you could also afford to upgrade to a 3BR if it’s only ~30% more than your current apartment. 3. I like the idea of you an...

Personally I think the biggest expense is housing. If you can find an affordable place that you like, then you should be able to save more money. But the biggest factor is whether you enjoy the housing and city lifestyle. I love visiting and working in NYC but wouldn’t want to live in the city. Unle...

They take average per square foot for the market, multiply that number by the square feet of the property and spit out a stupid number. My wife's aunt just recently went into an assisted living home. Her house was sold to the best offer made. Zillow's estimate (zestimate) was $295k. It sold for $13...

I have a 2009 Nissan Sentra with CVT and have had no problems with it at all. Only issue is some of the normal service intervals seemed more expensive than I expected and the dealership said it was because of whatever normal CVT service they did was more involved. But it has been very reliable and ...

Is Chinese capitalism in crisis, as stock market rout drives private companies into the state’s arms? At least 32 companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses sold controlling stakes to the Chinese state as of October 17, six of them to the central government, while 26 were taken over by p...

My car (2015 Subaru Forester) is dead and I'm getting it jumped later today to drive to the dealership for both recharging or replacing the battery and for a 30k-mile service that would normally be due soon (at 27k now). It's dead probably because I've driven it so little ever since moving to a ver...

My car (2015 Subaru Forester) is dead and I'm getting it jumped later today to drive to the dealership for both recharging or replacing the battery and for a 30k-mile service that would normally be due soon (at 27k now). It's dead probably because I've driven it so little ever since moving to a ver...

Stop vacations. If you live in a nice house, why pay for time away from it? You are paying double when you stay away from home. If you live in a desirable vacation area there are house swapping web sites where you can trade houses with someone in another part of the world for basically free. Obviou...

So you retired in 2008, that’s gutsy! 2008 yes. Gutsy no. I was self-employed, working as a consultant for a steel supplier in a General Motors facility. When GM entered bankruptcy, the facility was closed permanently, and my "job" disappeared. I had no plans to retire in 2008, but that's how it ha...

Try to max your 401ks and Roth IRAs since after you have kids that will become more challenging with daycare costs, so the more you can do now the better. Traditional 401k contributions also help to reduce your taxes so it won’t be quite as painful as you think.

Classifying mortgage as a negative bond, I am well over 100% in stocks. :beer That is, if you have a mortgage of $100k at 4% and $100k of bonds earning 4%, they would effectively cancel each other out and you would have net 0% bonds. If you have a EF, cash, or whatever, technically you are not 100% ...

There are two components to my trend following strategy concerning whether to be in or out of stocks. For me to move out of stocks, the unemployment rate must be above its 12 month moving average and stocks must be trading below their 7 month moving average (measured at the end of the month). The U...

Because the success of his IPS requires it. All cash until DOW 16K (correct me if wrong Dan). Also curious how your TSLA short is doing lately. I retired when I was 42. And made lots of money over the last 10 years, 100% stocks. There is no reason to remain in equities. I can live very well on divi...

Today's "bounce back" will be short lived. Pretty soon, the market will roll over and go deep red. Why? There are some known issues like the growth of C.L.O.s, tariffs, Italy, etc. But unless you are betting on the Halloween specter of a full-blown trade war, which I think is unlikely, since that w...

I tried this. I wanted to make it mandatory, but let my kids decide. My daughter followed my advice. She's 22, and has a fair amount of money invested. My son rejected my advice. He is 19, and broke. Too early to tell. I thought it was pretty much pointless to save until I got a real job. If you ar...

I think the teaching to set aside ~10% is a good one. But I have a feeling that money awareness might be one of those things that is more about how you treat money yourself. If your kids realize that you are rich but too frugal they may overcorrect and be a spendthrift themselves (or be too frugal t...

The repair would be about $4,000 and the refrigerator is about 30 years old. I do not think it would be worth it at this point. A 30 y/o frig has to be an energy hog of near disbelief! I don't know about sub zero's, but my 26 yr old GE uses $75 per year to run, Hardly disbelief. Tested with a kilow...

Is “pretension” a typo or deliberate? typo. The 5 factor model is the way to go. Self serving in my opinion. Ignore the dividend factor. It is the value & profitability factors that matter. Momentum is real but can't be exploited. (I had a issue with their arguments) Low Beta is not a factor. Thank...

Let’s be contrarian. Keep your house and find a good handy man. Pros: 1. Moving sucks, and will only suck more as you get older. 2. Nice to have extra space and stay in the same place if you like the area. 3. If you have annoying/loud neighbors, bed bugs, bufs, whatever, yes you can always move but ...

Don't be terrified. It's a very misleading headline and an only slightly less misleading study. JT Seems that way to me as well. It is also true that lifestyle choices greatly affect the chances that we will get many kinds of cancer. Yeah, lifestyle choices like breathing air (which is polluted by ...

Comparing people who "sell" quality education and common sense logic, to those greedy people who may lie to oversell an inferior product so that THEY can retire using your hard earning money, is not a fair comparison by any means. Of course it is. I compared their intellectual bias, not financial r...

So, I don't want to go in alot of detail, but I've made up mind to quit my job. I've been stressed out for the last 4-6 months and having panic attacks, waking up at night, etc. The majority of it is my job and part having to deal with my dad being very sick. I have emergency funds for almost a yea...

Gasoline is a pretty small portion of the TCO. In our case, ballpark, it's maybe 20% of our fully loaded car costs. At least here, the cost difference between regular and premium is about 10%. For a 2% difference in TCO, premium vs regular is pretty far down the list of things I care about. I care ...

TIPS don’t work in large taxable accounts due to the taxflation problem Your so-called "taxflation problem" exists in every investment . It is not some special issue with TIPS. In discussions that talk about "the historic returns of the stock market" how often do you see after-tax numbers quoted? V...

Unfortunately, Generac is the Yugo of generators. They spend money on commercials, not on the product. Kohler is the way to go. The engines are quieter and the enclosure is designed to protect the unit from weather while attenuating noise. Looks like they are all the same: "Many central air conditi...

I consume around 235,000 gallons of water per year. How are you using so much water? ~19,500 gallons a month? Showers and lawn watering mostly. I have a shower with 6 heads. My showers typically last 40-60 minutes. Very relaxing and cheaper than regular massages. I water my lawn daily. It looks fab...

OP, It is very simple. Those that are not prepared for a bear market worry about the bear market. I have a very simple philosophy in life. If I am worried about something, I would take action to prepare for it. I would not let my worry linger around. It makes my life relatively stress free. KlangFo...

Assuming I get good enough by retirement age, I would teach Tai Chi / Kung Fu. 20 students, $100/month average, would hopefully yield about $1k/month assuming 100% overhead (need a space for classes and there will be insurance/taxes.) It’s hard to get that many students though. I would probably be ...

Assuming I get good enough by retirement age, I would teach Tai Chi / Kung Fu. 20 students, $100/month average, would hopefully yield about $1k/month assuming 100% overhead (need a space for classes and there will be insurance/taxes.) It’s hard to get that many students though. I would probably be s...

Interesting. The 5-10% reduction in stocks would have many here wagging their fingers and chanting “market timing” if someone mentioned doing that in a post. It’s only market timing if you are changing your asset allocation back and forth by 5-10% to try to get higher returns. It’s not market timin...

I was reading up on stagflation and it is apparently caused by a sudden economic shock, like the trade war over oil in the 1970s. I would not call oil a "trade war". Normally a trade war is about a country impeding imports from another country, not about restricting its exports. There was an embarg...

Sorry if this seems derisive against FIRE proponents, but I just don't see it as possible. I'm in tech and make a good living, hopefully something that continues. However, I briefly went back to school to bone-up on fresh tech, and I used ACA to do so. Even my crappy ACA insurance that did nothing ...

FIRE is not growing .... what is growing is being a stay-at-home Dad while your wife works and provides employer healthcare benefits, while you blog about it and get income from that and call it all "Early Retirement". True. When Dad does it, Dad calls it “early retirement”, but when Mom does it, D...

"Technically they say they are places where you need to have $200,000 plus $1,360 in Social Security, giving you about $24,000 a year in spending." Getting past the click bait, many people in the US live on less than this. Sure, but the point is your money might go a lot further elsewhere. For exam...

If inflation turns out to be 5%, the real yield on the bonds would be -2%. What would the real yield on TIPS be? Still 1%? Yes. That's the point- you're exchanging nominal guaranteed returns for guaranteed inflation protection. It's worth noting that the yield is taxable (federally) regardless. Tha...

Yes, I think there is a strong correlation with the recent bull market and the growing FIRE community, and also with the popularity of a 100% stock portfolio. Also, some areas (California) had a massive real estate boom which also helped FIREees. I don’t know when the next crash will be, but I know ...